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Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Students at the University of Swaziland did not this year
mark the anniversary of the campus invasion by armed soldiers known as ‘Black
Wednesday.’

According to the Swazi
Observer, a commemoration was called off at the last minute because
present-day students were protesting that colleagues had been barred from
taking examinations because school fees had not been paid.

It would be a pity if these events stopped people
remembering the events of 14 November 1990.

It happened during what the Inter Press Service (IPS) news
agency called a ‘rebellion’ that ‘became a seminal event that signalled a new generation's political
consciousness’. It was, IPS said, ‘a dawning political awareness born from a
confluence of historical forces then sweeping the world and the Southern
African region’.

The
IPS report said ‘armed soldiers pushed police aside and forced students out of
the library where they had barricaded themselves’.

The
day began as a ‘disorganised demonstration’ against campus issues such as poor
food ‘but soon turned into demands for democratic reforms in Swaziland's
government’.

The IPS report quoted Manzini lawyer Lindiwe Khumalo-Matse, a university student
at the time, saying, ‘The reason why soldiers were called in was because
government saw our protest as a political uprising.’

Khumalo-Matse
is further quoted by IPS, ‘This was because of the involvement of Sabelo
Dlamini, who was a member of the People's United Democratic movement (PUDEMO).
Sabelo was prominent in the Students Representative Council,’ he said.

In
1990, one of the Swazi Government’s most draconian measures, a 60-Day Detention
Law, was still in force, permitting authorities to lock up anyone they saw as a
threat to public order. All political protestors were designated as such
threats.

The
violence that ensued after soldiers swept through campus has been a sensitive
subject with government ever since. A commission of enquiry had its report
secreted away for years, with a bowdlerized version finally released to the
public in 1997.

Two students who were seriously injured sued government for damages, and their
cases were settled out of court.

IPS
reported that not only was the traditional leadership’s fear of democracy
revealed on ‘Black Wednesday’, but also a proletariat attitude of resentment,
displayed by the soldiers, was shown against the educated student ‘elite’. The
military's code name for the university invasion was ‘Operation Tinfundiswa
(educated ones).’

‘It
was a time of wild rumours,’ recalled Khumalo-Matse. ‘We heard that government
feared we would burn down the library, which belied common sense because we
were inside and would have incinerated ourselves.’

The army officials in charge gave students a five-minute warning, and then
unleashed what one onlooker later told an investigating committee was a
‘military riot against civilians’.

Students were beaten as they emerged from the library to escape teargas
canisters hurled through windows, and had to run a gauntlet of soldiers. Other
soldiers chased students until they cornered them along fences. As they beat
students with batons, the soldiers informed them they were being ‘punished’.

People
in Swaziland were shocked by the brutality. Particularly offensive was one
newspaper photo depicting a young woman carried out of the library between
soldiers ‘like a slaughtered pig’, according to a letter writer to the Times of Swaziland.

Following the events, Michael Prosser, a professor from the
United States who was working at the University of Swaziland at the time,
posted a personal eye-witness account online. This is what he wrote.

BLOODY WEDNESDAY IN SWAZILAND

November 14, 1990, ‘Bloody Wednesday’ in Swaziland still lingers as a most
important moment in my life. It was the only day that I thought I surely might
die. I was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Swaziland in south east Africa
that year.

University students began boycotting classes on November 12 in protest of a
lack of faculty lecturers, poor food conditions, and the suspension of a
popular young sociology lecturer for promoting democracy in Swaziland.

Early on November 12, all 1 600 university students held a protest meeting and
boycotted all classes. At noon, they dumped their plastic wrapped lunches at
the administration office door. The Swazi radio, and tv stations, Swaziland’s
newspapers gave extensive coverage to the dumping of the lunches. Many Swazis
were subsistence farmers who often went to bed hungry; thus this student
decision reflected very badly on them. All students received a University
notice demanding the end of their class boycott on November 13. They decided to
continue it. The University Council demanded their return to classes on
November 14, or be considered in defiance of the twenty-three-year-old King
Mswati III.

Another student meeting on November 14 continued the boycott. About 500
students peacefully barricaded themselves in the two-storey university library.
Several hundred students left campus or stayed in their student hostel area. At
about 5pm, armed Swazi soldiers entered the high fenced campus.

A university official drove through the campus announcing
the immediate campus closure. Five young women rushed to me and asked for
emergency protection in my home. I took them there immediately.

A fifteen-hour rain and thunderstorm had just begun. The
young women were quite terrified.

The young soldiers broke into the library and the student hostels, dragging
students out, beating both men and women with their night sticks on their arms
and legs, and forcing them to run a gauntlet toward the front gate while the
soldiers gave them sharp blows.

The soldiers taunted the students: ‘We’ll beat the English
out of you.’ They were especially vicious toward the women. The soldiers had
been stationed that day at the high school next door to the campus and drank
lots of beer before they attacked the campus, making them even more violent
than otherwise so likely.

A neighbor warned us that at 10pm, soldiers would search our
houses and arrest any students found there or on campus. Two Canadian families
and I, in a caravan of three autos, took 11 frightened Swazi students in the
three cars to the front gate to take them to safety.

With a gun pointed the first driver’s cheek, he got
permission from the guard to leave the campus with the students. In the
swirling rain, lightening, and thunderstorm, we took the students to safe
shelters. When we returned to campus late in the evening, two soldiers were
posted all night in the back and in the front of our houses.

With some students, I drove to the nearby hospital where
more than 120 students had received emergency treatment. We visited more than a
dozen badly injured students. We learned that soldiers possibly had injured as
many as 300-400 and had killed perhaps as many as two-four students.

The Swazi radio and tv stations gave no information about
what had happened after the students had dumped their food. However, the two
Swazi newspapers did give the event considerable coverage over several weeks.
They also printed many letters to the editor decrying the incident and called
for a national judicial enquiry. Reuters News Agency and the South African
press gave it some coverage.

Amnesty International cited it in their 1991 Annual Review.
The University remained closed for two months, reopening on January 14. A
national judicial enquiry, more heavily critical of the student boycott than
the hostile military response, began on March 14, 1991 and ended on May 14. The
enquiry panel never released any details to the public.

The print media called the incident ‘Black Wednesday’ but my students and I
attempted to have the newspapers rename it Bloody Wednesday since so much
innocent student blood had been shed.

I always recall that day as my worst and best day in
Swaziland when much evil occurred but many good people at the campus, the
hospital, and nearby clinics generously helped the students. Do these former
African students, now in their thirties, still remember that day? I assume so.
I certainly always do.

Monday, 28 November 2016

Swaziland’s Director of
Public Prosecutions Nkosinathi Maseko has said, ‘most nationals of Asian origin
were associated with terrorist activities’.

The Observer on Saturday (26 November 2016) reported he told this to a
parliamentary select committee set up to investigate what the newspaper called
an ‘influx of illegal immigrants’ into the kingdom.

The newspaper reported Maseko
had said, ‘it was public information that most nationals of Asian origin were
associated with terrorist activities; and their continued entry illegally put
the country and its citizens at high risk of being a nucleus for terrorist
activities.’

Maseko and the Observer gave no evidence to support this.

The newspaper reported, ‘Maseko
said it was possible that even the huge sums of money being invested in the
country by those who paraded as businessmen were proceeds of illicit
activities.’

The Observer
added Maseko told the committee, ‘The country is under siege, and it is very
scary.’

It added, ‘His greatest fear is that these people are
multiplying in great numbers.’

Friday, 25 November 2016

Swaziland’s
National Police Commissioner Isaac Magagula has reacted angrily to a request
from the Police Staff Association that its executive committee be recognised.

The
Association’s executive was elected on 13 July 2016, but so far has not been
acknowledged by the Swazi police chief.

Magagula
took exception that Staff Association President Isaac Kaire Lukhele had spoken
to the Swazi Observer newspaper about
the matter.

The Observer reported on Wednesday (24
November 2016), ‘The National Commissioner has since decided to remind Kaire
and his executive to be careful in the manner they make public statements.’

The
newspaper quoted Magagula saying, ‘The language being used makes us suspect
this is not the association we expected to be formed but seemingly they are
using unionist language. Their tone is unacceptable and they should be careful
on that. Again, it is a Police Staff Association and not just a police
association and it needs to be corrected.’

The
newspaper reported, ‘Magagula also said there was no way his office or the
national executive would be put under pressure so as to recognise the Police
Staff Association.’

There
have been attempts in the past to form a trade union for police officers. The Swaziland Police Union was declared illegal by
the SwaziSupreme Court in 2009.

At the time, Secretary General of the Union, Khanyakwezwe Mhlanga had written to the
then Commissioner of Police Edgar Hillary and asked for recognition as a
bargaining body of the police. Hillary refused and insisted that the Police
Staff Association was the only authentic bargaining group for the police.

Thursday, 24 November 2016

Muslim visitors to Swaziland say they were
‘terrorised’ by local police.

The Imam of Ezulwini Islamic Centre, Feroz Ismail, said
guests had visited the kingdom from across Africa for a graduation and Jasla
Ceremony.

The Times of Swaziland newspaper on Wednesday
(23 November 2016) reported him saying the guests, ‘were abused while in the country.
They informed me that they were terrorised by the police while visiting some
tourist attraction areas including the glass and candle factory.’

He said police
demanded that the visitors produce their passports and other documents required
for visitors to be in the country.

The Times reported Ismail saying, ‘They were
ferried in police vehicles to their hotel rooms as the officers demanded that
they immediately produce documents which proved that they were in the country
legally.’

This is
not the first time police have been heavy-handed with Muslims. In September
2016, it was reported undercover police were infiltrating Muslim mosques to
attend Friday prayers.

Wednesday, 23 November 2016

People in Swaziland who are affiliated to any political group will not be
granted radio or television broadcasting licences in a proposed law.

Swaziland is controlled by King Mswati III who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last
absolute monarch. Broadcasting and newspapers in the kingdom are already
heavily restricted. Political parties are not allowed to contest elections and those
that advocate for democracy are in effect banned in Swaziland.

The Swaziland Broadcasting Bill was
discussed by stakeholders at a workshop organised by the Ministry of
Information, Communications and Technology at the Royal Swazi Sun Convention
Centre.

The Principal Secretary to the Ministry of Information, Communications and
Technology, Sikelela Dlamini, said the definition of what was meant by
‘political group’ would be included in the Bill, before it was tabled to
parliament.

The move is not unexpected. At present, nearly all
broadcasting in Swaziland is state controlled. Swaziland Broadcasting and
Information Service (SBIS) oversees state radio stations. The only independent
radio is Voice of the Church, a Christian station that does not carry news.

There are only two TV stations in the kingdom, the
state-controlled Swazi TV and the independent Channel S, which has a
publicly-stated policy of supporting King Mswati.

Most people in Swaziland get their news and information
from radio. Newspapers hardly penetrate rural areas where more than 70 percent
of the population lives and television is too expensive for most people.

Currently, broadcasters in Swaziland serve the interests
of the ruling elites and not those of the people. No criticism is allowed on
the airwaves of the status quo in Swaziland. Any criticism of the ruling elite
is seen as ‘non-Swazi’. The Prime Minister of the day is editor-in-chief of the
Swazi broadcasting and can decide what goes on the air and what does not.

There are only two daily newspapers in Swaziland, One,
the Swazi Observer, is in effect
owned by King Mswati. It was described by the Media Institute of Southern
Africa (MISA) in a report on media freedom in the kingdom as, a‘pure
propaganda machine for the royal family’.

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Trade unionists in Swaziland have called for an
official inquiry after it was revealed that E5.1billion (US$360 million) was unaccounted for in Treasury Department bank
accounts.

The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) called on the
Swazi Prime
Minister Barnabas Dlamini to launch an inquiry headed by a judicial officer of
national repute or a judicial inquiry.

The missing E5.1 billion was highlighted during an audit of the
Accountant General’s office by Kobla Quashie and Associates. The independent
auditors feared there may have been fraud, misappropriation and
embezzlement.

TUCOSWA Secretary
General Vincent Ncongwane in a statement said, ‘Failure to address this matter
will leave us with no option but to call for a national shutdown in order that
the due importance and urgency of the matter is appreciated.’

TUCOSWA estimated
the missing funds amounted to more than 35 percent of the national budget of
Swaziland.

Primary
schoolgirls in Swaziland are falling pregnant because they are forced to have
sex with older men for food.

The Swazi Observer newspaper reported on
Thursday (17 November 2016), ‘a worrying number of pupils’ at Bekezela Primary
School in Lubulini were said to have fallen pregnant this year, ‘due to the
poverty levels which are said to have been worsened by the El Nino-induced
drought’.

The newspaper
reported Bongile Ngubeni, who is the welfare teacher at the school, saying they
were currently facing numerous challenges which have come as results of the
drought.

The
newspaper reported, ‘Ngubeni said the school has since the beginning of the
year been recording cases of pregnancy amongst the children, especially those
in the higher grades. She highlighted that these children were said to have
mainly been impregnated by older men who would promise them food and other
necessities.

‘Ngubeni
said according to their assessment, most of these children stay alone while
their parents are away in search for employment opportunities to sustain their
families.’

The newspaper quoted Kobla
Quashie saying, ‘It should be stated that the amounts noted as differences are
so significant that it renders the annual treasury accounts submitted to
Parliament and other government agencies inaccurate and misleading.’

It added that the suspected
reconciliation was done for the sake of ‘administrative convenience’ and had ‘created
doubt over the entire process, but has also opened a window for fraud,
misappropriation and embezzlement’.

Thursday, 10 November 2016

The Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the
kingdom, censored itself heavily in a
report about exploitation of
sugar workers to deflect criticism away from the absolute monarch King Mswati
III.

This trend of misinformation
has been continuing at the newspaper for years.

The Times said on Monday (7 November 2016), ‘The new International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) report is called “Swazi gold”’.

In fact, the report was
called, King Mswati’s gold: Workers’ rights and land confiscation in
Swaziland’s sugar sector.

The Times reported that ITUC said many companies made big profits from
sugar. The newspaper added, ‘Sugar cane production has brought about more human
suffering than development in Swaziland. Many people have been evicted and the
general conditions in the sugar industry are atrocious.’

Not once did the Times report that the blame for the
problem was put squarely on King Mswati.

The Times did not report the opening sentences of the ITUC report that
said, ‘On 12 April 1973, King Sobhuza II decreed a national state of emergency
thereby assuming total control over all aspects of Swazi public life. Political
parties were banned and political activism was criminalised. Though the state
of emergency was lifted in 2005, little has changed. The royal family has used
Tibiyo Taka Ngwane, established in 1968 as a development fund, as the means to
control the Swazi economy and to amass a large fortune.’

Tibiyo Taka Ngwane controls
the sugar industry in Swaziland.

The ITUC report added, ‘The
King is the sole trustee of Tibiyo and the fund is immune from all judicial
review. As such, Tibiyo is able to compete unfairly in the economy, undermining
local business and discouraging much-needed foreign investment (FDI).’

It added, ‘However, for
workers employed in the sugar industry, the sector has no such lustre; instead,
workers live in extreme poverty despite long hours and hard work generating
wealth for the King. Trade union activities are highly repressed, and laws such
as the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act, 1938, Public Order Act of 1963
and the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008 are used to suppress trade union
activity.’

This is not the first time
newspapers in Swaziland have censored themselves in order to shield their
readers from criticism about King Mswati. The Swazi Observer group of newspapers is owned by Tibiyo Taka Ngwane,
and thereby the King. It was described by the Media Institute of Southern
Africa in a report on press freedom in Swaziland as a‘pure
propaganda machine for the royal family’.

It is impossible to know
how much censorship and self-censorship takes place in Swaziland because it is
hidden. Occasionally, newspapers are found out.

In
January 2014, CNN
reported about US President Barack Obama’s criticism of Swaziland and its King.
Obama was speaking at the tribute to the life of Nelson Mandela.

The Times
was reporting a commentary
written by Frida Ghitis and published online by CNN, the
international cable news channel. The newspaper reported that Ghitis said
Freedom House, an international human rights organisation, described Swaziland
as a ‘failed state’.

But, that is not what Ghitis actually wrote. She said
Freedom House called Swaziland a ‘failed feudal
state’, which is something quite different. By deliberately changing the sense
of the statement, the Times deflected
the criticism away from the King.

The newspaper also did not report that Ghitis also
referred in her article to, ‘dictators and their right-hand men’ who were
present at the tribute to Mandela.

Ghitis wrote, but the Times did not report,‘It
included the likes of Swaziland Prime Minister [Barnabas] Sibusiso Dlamini,
representing the small kingdom described by Freedom House as “a failed feudal
state,” where the king uses photos of beautiful girls to attract tourists,
“distracting outsiders from Swaziland's shocking realities of oppression,
abject poverty, hunger and disease.”

In
March 2013, the Times Sunday,the
Times of Swaziland companion
newspaper, distorted a report from what it called the ‘reputable’ Institute for
Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa about Swaziland’s parliamentary election
that was due in 2013.

It reported ISS saying that there could be violence around
the time of the election, as a result of ‘public dissatisfaction, stemming
particularly from among other things, governments unsatisfactory activity in
the year 2012’.

The Times Sunday
reported, ‘It said such had worsened and had also been exacerbated by the
government’s failure to heed demands from the unions for reduced expenditure
and a pro-poor budget.’

But, in fact, what the ISS report, called Swaziland’s
non-party political system and the 2013 Tinkhundla elections, actually said was,
‘Public dissatisfaction in 2012 has been exacerbated by the government’s
failure to heed demands from the unions for reduced royal expenditure and a
pro-poor budget.’ The Times
deliberately censored the word ‘royal’ to distort the meaning of the sentence.

The previous month in February
2013, the Times of Swaziland
newspaper once again misled its readers by misrepresenting a report from KPMG Services Proprietary Limited on
the kingdom by international business consultants that criticised King Mswati
for the political crisis that had stagnated the economy and said protesters
were calling for the King to give up his power as an absolute monarch.

The report said that if banned political parties were
allowed to contest that year’s national election and they won a majority of
seats, ‘it is possible that the King would respond by revoking the constitution
and trying to rule by decree’.

The Times
reported that international consultants had issued a ‘gloomy’ report on the
kingdom’s prospects from 2012 to 2016. According to the newspaper, KPMG predicted prodemocracy protests
would take place in Swaziland over the coming year.

This is what the Times
reported KPMG saying, ‘Although the protests have been sparked by the fiscal
crisis, they reflect a range of deeper-rooted issues: the mismanagement of
public money and government’s stubborn resistance to calls for democratic
reform.’

But, this is what KPMG actually said, ‘Although the
protests have been sparked by the fiscal crisis, they reflect a range of
deeper-rooted issues: the extravagance of the royals and the political elite,
the mismanagement of public money and the government’s stubborn resistance to
calls for democratic reform.’

Top of the list for the reasons behind protests in
Swaziland were, according to KPMG, ‘the extravagance of the royals’.

Again, in October
2012, the Times Sunday distorted
a story about UK Prime Minister David Cameron and freedom and democracy in the
kingdom, to deflect criticism away from the King.

The newspaper carried a report saying that Cameron had responded to a petition
from the Swazi Vigil, a
prodemocracy group in the UK.

According to the Times Sunday, the petition read in part,
‘Exiled Swazis and supporters urge you to put pressure on (the Swazi government)
to allow political freedom, freedom of the press, rule of law, respect for
women and affordable AIDS drugs in Swaziland.’

The newspaper inserted the
words ‘the Swazi government’ into the petition to make it seem that it was
Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini and his cabinet that was being criticised.

In fact, the petition sent
to Cameron in May 2012 actually read, ‘Petition to the British Government:
Exiled Swazis and supporters urge you to put pressure on absolute monarch King
Mswati III to allow political freedom, freedom of the press, rule of law,
respect for women and affordable AIDs drugs in Swaziland.’

The Swazi Vigil made it
very clear that it was criticising ‘absolute monarch King Mswati III’.

The newspaper was reporting on a cable sent by Earl
Irvine, US Ambassador to Swaziland, in December 2009 and leaked by
whistleblowing website Wikileaks.

The cable reported Irvine saying he was told by Prince
David, a half brother of King Mswati, who was also a former Minister of Justice
and Constitutional Affairs, that because of the dishonest and uneducated people
around him the King received bad advice.

But, what the Times
did not report was the criticism Prince David made about King Mswati himself. Prince
David in effect called the King a liar and said that the international
community should not trust him.

The cable from Irvine said, ‘Prince David emphasized
that what the King says to foreign leaders cannot be relied upon, because he
always deflects and temporizes to bring pressure off himself.’

The Times of
Swaziland is scared of King Mswati and knows that is it criticises the
monarch he will close it down. In April 2007, the Times Sunday published a minor criticism of King Mswati, sourced
from an international news agency. The king went ballistic and told the Times publisher Paul Loffler he would
close the paper down unless people responsible for the publication at the paper
were sacked and the newspaper published an abject apology to the king. These
things were done.

The Times Sunday
and other media in Swaziland constantly mislead their readers and audiences
about how King Mswati is viewed outside his kingdom. In May 2012, there was
widespread criticism against King Mswati’s invitation to join a lunch in London
to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

There were street
demonstrations in London against the King and prodemocracy campaigners drew
attention to the lack of freedoms in Swaziland and the lavish lifestyle the King
enjoyed, while seven in ten of his subjects languished in absolute poverty,
earning less than US$2 a day.

Inkhosikati LaMbikiza one of the king’s 13 wives who
accompanied him to the lunch wore shoes costing
£995 (US$1,559), the equivalent of more than three years’ income for 70
percent of Swazi people. The total
cost of the King’s trip was estimated to be at least US$794,500.

The Times Sunday,
reported at the time that Inkhosikati LaMbikiza had ‘rave reviews’ from the Daily Mail newspaper in London for her
dress sense, but omitted to say the same newspaper also
reported, ‘Guests from controversial regimes include Swaziland’s King
Mswati III, who has been accused of living an obscenely lavish lifestyle while
many of his people starve.’

There was similar criticism a year earlier in April
2011 when King Mswati went to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The Times newspaper in South Africa
reported at the time, ‘The controversial absolute monarch, whose country is
ranked among the poorest in the world, spent much of this week playing
hide-and-seek with prodemocracy demonstrators tailing him across London.’ The King
was forced to change his hotel to avoid pickets.

The Swazi media failed to report any of this, but did
say that King Mswati had been welcomed by business people in the UK.